


2199 Nights

by Mobi_On_A_Mission



Series: Chopped: The 100 Fanfic Challenge [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Arabian Nights Fusion, Alternate Universe - Everyone Is A Grounder (The 100), Bellamy is a Bad Guy, Chopped: The 100 Fanfic Challenge, Commander Bellamy Blake, F/M, I love him but he's a villain here, and not a very sympathetic one at that, i love that that tag exists, seriously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:01:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23164402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mobi_On_A_Mission/pseuds/Mobi_On_A_Mission
Summary: Every day, the Commander Bellamy took a new wife and executed her the next morning, until one day his fleimkepa's daughter volunteered. She kept him entertained with tales of far-off places, sword fights, magic spells, a prince in disguise. . .Written for the qualifying round of Chopped Madness
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin
Series: Chopped: The 100 Fanfic Challenge [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1678093
Comments: 13
Kudos: 98
Collections: Chopped Madness





	2199 Nights

**Author's Note:**

> Qualifying round - Bellamy Blake  
> Theme: Canonverse  
> Trope 1: Fairy Tale AU **(1001 Nights/Arabian Nights)**  
>  Trope 2: Write a villain as a good guy, or **a good guy (Bellamy Blake) as a villain!**

“Heda,” Abby pleaded, “I don’t know what you want me to do.”

“What I _want_ you to do-” Bellamy leaned forward on his throne. “-is your job. All I ask for is a bride. There are thousands throughout the Coalition, yet you stumble to find me one?”

“With all due respect, Heda, that is not my job. I am your fleimkepa. Your advisor. My scouts should be out looking for natblidas, not virgins.”

“Your scouts will look for whoever I tell them to look for, Abby.”

She shook her head. “We’ve given you what, thirty seven brides by now? And you behead each one the next day. I’ve told you before—the young women are figuring it out. Thirty seven days ago there were plenty of virgins in the villages, but now?” She shook her head. “Now they’ve gone and fixed that problem for themselves.”

Bellamy’s jaw clenched. He was the _Commander_. That title was supposed to grant him whatever he pleased. It’s why he killed his younger sister in the conclave. It’s why he didn’t hesitate before taking the life of everyone in their novitiate class, until he was the last one left. He thought of the power every night as a child, when he was lying in bed missing his mother and the quiet life they had in the village before the fleimkepa’s scouts found him and Octavia. If only he could be Commander, he’d thought, he could have anything he wanted.

But now his fleimkepa was trying to deny him of another bride. He would not stand for that.

“You see, Abby-” He smiled condescendingly. “-I don’t care if it’s hard to find them. I don’t care if you don’t want to find them. You _will_ find them.” He shrugged and leaned back on his throne. “Otherwise I’ll take your precious daughter as my bride.”

“Heda! Mind your place. You need to respect your fleimkepa.”

“You may be fleimkepa, but I’m the Commander.” He dismissed her with a flick of his wrist. “Those are my terms. Now get out of my sight.”

***

When Clarke strided between his guards and into the Throne Room that afternoon, Bellamy couldn’t believe his eyes. He never saw her anymore, not since he killed his first wife. He’d assumed she was avoiding him.

Bellamy and Clarke had grown up in the tower together. He was a natblida novitiate, and she was the fleimkepa’s daughter. She wasn’t a novitiate herself, but she tagged along on their lessons and sparred with them in the field. And when she wasn’t allowed to be with them, she was reading. History, fairy tales, and philosophy, Clarke loved it all. She was, without a doubt, the most well-read woman in all of Polis.

She was there when Abby put the Flame in his head. She was there when he met his first wife, Echo, and when they got married. She was even there when he found out his wife was betraying him. Bellamy and Clarke were in the corner of the library hiding from Abby when Echo and a guard slipped into the room. The conversation was short and quiet, but there was no mistaking it. It all came out then: Echo was an Azgeda spy sent to overthrow his reign.

He beheaded Echo without a second thought. Everything he knew of her was a lie. Everything they were as a couple was a lie.

Bellamy took another wife, because he could. But he had learned his lesson. He wouldn’t let her betray him the same way his first wife had. So he beheaded her too. He took a wife each day, one after another, and beheaded each one. The rising sun was their omen of death. A clean break. Bellamy had a system, and it worked for him.

But just as surely as Clarke had been in his life before, she was gone. He never saw her around the tower anymore. A few times he was inches from knocking on her door, but he always stopped himself before he could. Bellamy was in control. He wouldn’t chase after her.

But now she was back, stalking straight through the doors and across the carpet to stand in front of him. She didn’t kneel before him, but then again she never did. Bellamy was too delighted to correct her anyway.

“What is it you seek?” He tried to keep his voice unaffected.

“I wish to marry you, Heda.”

“Marry me?” It made no sense at all. No one had ever _wanted_ to marry him, not since Echo. And even for her, it had been a job.

“That’s correct. This evening, if it suits your fancy?”

Bellamy couldn’t think of a good reason why not.

They were married that evening, a quick ceremony without fanfare. It was just like all of his other weddings. More of a routine than a special event.

The wedding night was different. Instead of sleeping, or crying, or trying to escape, Clarke wanted to tell him a story.

“A story?” Bellamy couldn’t believe it.

“A fairy tale. Yes.” She laid a hand on his arm, stroking back and forth with the tips of her fingers. “I can’t think of a better way to spend my last few hours alive.”

Bellamy couldn’t deny her such a modest request. “Do your worst.”

Clarke licked her lips and began her tale.

_Once upon a time, in a land not so far away from here, lived a poor farmer and his son._

“Not so far away, hm? Anywhere I would know?”

“Not exactly. Shh, let me tell it.”

_The farmer died, and the king took away his land. His poor son grew even poorer, as he had no other family and no land to call his own. He lived on someone else’s farm and tended to their animals and crops._

_That is, until one day, when an old man with a hooded robe and a walking stick knocked on his door. He said that he was going on a journey to find the Kingdom of Light. A kingdom of plenty, with rich loam soil underfoot and more farming land than any one man could fathom, all free for the taking._

_So the farmer’s son left his home. He and eleven other disciples followed the old man across a great desert. Not a single one of them knew where the Kingdom was, but they knew it was across the desert. That’s where the few people they saw on their journey told them it was, but none of them had been there themselves._

_The desert was massive and dry and hot. For seven days they walked. They tried to walk in a straight line, but everything looked the same. For as far as the eye could see in every direction, there was sand. The wind tore up the landscape and changed the shape of the dunes. There was no way to tell if they were anywhere closer to the Kingdom of Light than they were when they began._

_They were running out of food and water when they stumbled upon a lone fox in the desert, curled up in the meagre shade of a cart. They approached her, thinking that maybe she could point them in the direction of food, water—anything._

_To their surprise, the fox spoke in human words. She told them she knew where the Kingdom was, and she would bring them there. If only they would share what little food and water they had with her._

_The travelers were wary of the fox, but the farmer’s son knew they had no choice. He gave the fox his water and agreed to her terms on behalf of all of them. The travelers were still wary, but they allowed the fox to lead them across the desert and share in their rations._

_Eventually night fell and they all lay down to sleep. Except the fox didn’t go to sleep. No, instead a flurry of foxes came from every direction to surround the sleeping travellers. They snatched all the bags full of food and water and set off into the night._

_The first fox didn’t make it far, not before she was stopped. You see, the farmer’s son was lying awake. He saw the fox trying to make her escape and grabbed her paw to stop her._

_“You’ve betrayed us,” he said, not at all surprised._

_The fox shook her head. “You’ve misunderstood. We were never on the same side.”_

_“You’ve betrayed your promise, then. You never brought us to the Kingdom of Light.”_

_She got a devilish gleam in her eye. “That’s where you’re wrong. I make good on my word.” The fox uncurled her tail, revealing a bright yellow star that shone in the darkness of the night. “Take this. It will lead you to the Kingdom. There you will find what you seek.”_

_The farmer’s son was entranced by the star. He let go of the fox’s paw and took the star in the palm of his hand. The power of it was overtaking. It was hot and bright and filled his whole body with a bright tingling energy._

_When he looked up from the star in his palm, the fox was gone. Vanished. He looked all around him, but the landscape that had just been filled with foxes was completely barren. He didn’t understand how they could be gone so quickly. But he was tired, oh so tired, and the star coaxed him to fall fast asleep._

_The sun rose the next morning, and the travellers awoke to find the fox had left them with nothing. No food. No water. They were furious._

_Perhaps the farmer’s son shouldn’t have told them he had seen it all happen, because then they shook their fists at him instead of at the sky._

_“How could you not stop her?” they yelled. “She is but one small fox. You have betrayed us all!”_

_The farmer’s son pleaded that there was a whole skulk of foxes, that there was no way he could have stopped them all. But the travellers didn’t listen._

_He showed them the star in his palm, and they believed him even less. To his eyes the light was almost blinding, the heat almost burning. But they saw nothing, felt nothing. And they didn’t listen._

_The travelers thought he had gone mad. Not a single one believed the farmer’s son, except the old man. He was the only one who believed._

_So the rest of them turned back home. Even the old man. But the farmer’s son was not so easily dissuaded. There was nothing for him in turning back. There was no guarantee they would make it home, and even if they did there was nothing but poverty waiting for him there._

_So he walked on. For three days and two nights he walked through the desert, following a star that only he could see. The more time passed, the more he wondered if the other travelers were right. Perhaps he really had gone mad. But the star was all he had._

_On the third night, the star brought him to the sea. It was a great big sea. The shore reached as far as the eye could see to either side. Far into the horizon, he could see where the blue of the sea met the black of the sky._

_The star urged him onward, into the sea. It showed him a rickety old boat and coaxed him to the helm. He was the son of a farmer, not a fisherman! He did not know how to pilot a boat._

_But it was either that or starve, so he took a big breath and started the motor._

_Little did he know, he was about to face his greatest challenge yet, for just as the shoreline disappeared behind him, he felt a deep rumbling from the sea. A monstrous sea dragon emerged from the depths right in front of him, standing as tall as the tower of Polis and its wingspan as far across. The dragon looked the farmer’s son straight in the eye and roared with all the power of the sea._

***

Just as Clarke got to the climax of her great tale, the sun cast its light across Bellamy’s bedroom in Polis. He jumped out of bed. No, this couldn’t be. He was going to be late. He had a meeting with Pleinkru, a potential thirteenth clan for the Coalition. As much as he wanted to stay to hear the rest of the story, he couldn’t miss the meeting.

“Leaving so soon, Heda?” Clarke feigned surprise, but Bellamy knew her too well to miss the smile in her voice.

“You know me, always another meeting to attend. You’ll tell me the rest of the story tonight, no?”

“Whatever the hell you want,” she said with a real smile this time. The callback to his childhood antics sent a pang of regret to his heart. If only being Commander was as easy as ‘whatever the hell we want.’

Leaving Clarke alive was a risk. There was a reason he executed his wives quickly. He couldn’t get attached, couldn’t let himself trust them. He couldn’t let them betray him. But just this one time, Bellamy could make an exception. There was simply no time for an execution this morning.

Besides, he really wanted to hear the end of that story.

Clarke weighed on his mind all day. Between her story, looming execution, and his sleepless night, Bellamy couldn’t focus on his meetings. He sunk into the background and let his fleimkepa deal with the delegates as he slipped into daydreams.

Still, he heard the whispers. It was all over the tower. People had heard that he hadn’t executed his new wife that morning. The rumors spread like wildfire, and by the end of the day Bellamy himself didn’t know what was true.

One rumor in particular stuck with him. He heard it from Murphy, one of Abby’s scouts. It wasn’t dignified for a young priest like Murphy to be spreading rumors about the Commander, but Bellamy revelled in the tales he shared from across the land. So he always listened with rapt attention rather than scolding or punishing Murphy like he should have.

Murphy began with the fact that Clarke volunteered to be Bellamy’s wife. He already knew that much. What he didn’t know is _why_ she volunteered. And he would be lying if he said it didn’t bother him. It didn’t make sense that she would volunteer to die like that.

It was obvious once Murphy said it: it was a trick. Clarke was tricking him. Bellamy’s jaw clenched and his hands tightened into fists. She was exactly like every other woman he’d ever known. A trickster. A liar. A snake.

He found Clarke in the library that evening, perched on a bench by the windowsill, face pressed in close to a book even though there were plenty of candles to see by the light of. The library was always her favorite place. When they were little, he could always rely on her to run there whenever she was having a hard time. It was never hard to find her.

He closed the door to the library behind him. “Clarke.”

Her head shot up at the click of the door and the sternness of his voice.

“Yes Heda?”

He clicked his jaw. “I bet you’re proud of yourself, evading execution like this.”

“What?” Clarke closed her book and turned her whole body to face him. “I didn’t evade anything. Just lost track of time.”

Bullshit. “You and I both know that’s not true. You tricked me.”

“By telling a fairytale?” She shook her head. “That’s hardly a trick.”

“Yet it worked.”

Clarke hummed. “So it did. But you must know, I just love stories.” She paused. “That reminds me, I must finish the tale from last night.”

Bellamy dropped the subject, too eager to hear what happened to the farmer’s son to worry about Clarke’s trickery any longer. He settled on the floor in between her legs, and she played with his hair as she told him the rest of the story.

_Where was I? Oh yes. The farmer’s son was in the sea when a great big dragon emerged from deep in the water…_

_The farmer’s son was more afraid than he had ever been before. If he could have turned back, in that moment, he would. But the dragon was right there in front of him. There was no turning back._

_He looked to the star to tell him what to do. It glowed bright, so bright against the black sky, and pressed itself into his chest. The farmer’s son didn’t know what that meant, but he closed his eyes and listened to the little star. The dragon was still in front of him, roaring louder than anything, so he couldn’t hear anything else. But he could feel the star. Feel it warm and bright, right against his heart._

_And suddenly it made sense._

_He grabbed the star in his hand, stood up tall, and stretched his arms up as high as he could get them. “Excuse me!” His voice was just shy of a yell. “Mr dragon?”_

_To his surprise, the dragon ceased its roaring. Its eyes caught on the light of the little star, and it lowered its head to get even closer. The farmer’s son stood strong, refusing to flinch under the heat of the dragon’s breath. It lowered its head even more, until it was half in the water, nose pressing against the side of the boat. The little star pulled the farmer’s son forward, until he was stepping on the dragon’s nose._

_The dragon swam, pulling him along for the ride. It was hard to hold on with how fast they were going, but there was a horn on the dragon’s nose and the farmer’s son gripped onto it as tightly as he could, wrapping his whole body around it._

_The dragon swam, following the light of the little star. It swam and swam, until at last it reached land. It lay its head on the shore, daybreak peaking across the horizon, allowing the farmer’s son to step off._

_The land was beautiful. Expansive and rich and untouched. The farmer’s son would have marched onward without a second thought, but before he could there was a bright light behind him that turned everything to white._

_He turned around and there it was: the little star, tearing itself to two. One piece went to the farmer’s son, nestling into his chest then pushing further, merging itself with him until it was lodged within his heart. The other piece did the same with the dragon._

_The farmer’s son nodded to the dragon, and walked up onto the shore._

“Can you guess what happened next?”

Bellamy’s eyes were closed and he was half asleep, but he could guess. “He lived happily ever after, didn’t he?”

“That’s exactly what happened.”

Clarke took him by the hand and led him to his bedroom, where she lay down next to him. But she didn’t let him fall asleep just yet.

She propped her head up on her hand. “Have I ever told you the story of the princess and the witch?”

Bellamy shook his head, already nestled into the pillow. “It’s late, Clarke. I just want to go to sleep.”

“But if this is my last night alive…”

He let out an exasperated sigh and let his eyes shut. “Fine.”

_Once upon a time, in a land far away, there lived a princess who loved a prince very much._

Even though he couldn’t see the smile on her face, he could hear it.

_The prince loved the princess too. They were happy and in love, and they were engaged to be married._

“That didn’t last long, did it?”

“No, Heda, no it didn’t.”

The title didn’t sound right coming from her lips. “Bellamy’s okay.”

“Alright, Bellamy. Now be quiet and let me tell the story.”

_It wasn’t for any shortage of love, but the wedding couldn’t go on. You see, there was an evil old witch who had no love in her heart. She came to the princess in a puff of orange smoke two days before the wedding was to take place._

_The old witch said she had sent a storm for them, a flood that would ruin their crops and drown not only the flood plain but the whole kingdom. The only way to stop it was for the princess to go with the witch as her prisoner._

_The witch would be back the next night to hear the princess’s decision._

_When morning came, the princess went to her royal advisors about the witch and her threat. The advisors checked with the magicians and the magicians checked with the scientists, and everyone agreed that the witch’s threat was real. The storm was coming, and no magic they had was strong enough to stop it._

_The princess’s advisors told her not to go with the witch. The prince begged and pleaded for her to stay. He loved her so much, more than anything else in the world, but he had to let her go. The princess could not let the witch drown the kingdom, and the prince knew there was nothing he could do to change her mind._

_Nightfall came once more, and the prince waited with the princess for the witch to return. She arrived in a puff of orange smoke._

_“What’ll it be, princess? Come with me and let your precious kingdom be safe, or stay and watch the storm?”_

_The princess brought her shoulders back and tipped her chin forward. “I’ll come with you, witch. For my people.”_

_The witch cackled. “Perfect! Perfect! We shall be gone at once!” She grabbed the princess by her wrist, and a cloud of orange smoke overtook her once more. By the time the smoke cleared, the evil old witch and the princess were nowhere to be found. The prince was wholly and truly alone._

_The skies cleared and the storm never came._

_The prince mourned the loss of his love. He sent out search parties for her, hired fairies to find the witch, and hoped against all odds that she would come home safe. And after a year, when they still hadn’t come up with anything, the prince mourned the princess’s death._

_Little did he know, the princess wasn’t dead at all. For six years and seven days she waited, trapped in the witch’s house. The witch kept her in with magical locks deep in the woods. The princess spent her days cooking and cleaning and whatever else the witch asked of her. All the while, the princess dreamed of the prince coming to save her, or of the witch letting her go._

_Neither of those things happened. Six years into the princess’s captivity, the witch shapeshifted into the princess’s body and knocked on the palace door._

Clarke’s voice trailed off.

“Clarke? Clarke? What happened next?” Bellamy needed to know how the story ended.

“So tired…” She yawned. “I’ll finish the story later, okay?”

He knew it was a trick. He knew she was just trying to stall her execution for yet another day. But Bellamy was tired too, and in that moment he couldn’t think of a reason not to drift off to sleep himself.

***

Bellamy didn’t execute her that morning. Or the morning after that. Or the morning after that. For 2199 nights, Clarke kept him entertained with her stories. The first few were fairy tales, but sometimes she told him histories or philosophy or anything else she could think of. The histories were his favorites, that or the few mythologies she knew. Tales so absurd he couldn’t imagine how people used to believe them, but somehow they passed them through generations as truth, as religion.

Some nights, Bellamy was so tired he’d fall asleep before Clarke could try to continue the story. Others he preferred to stay up late talking and not telling stories. A few times he even told his own clumsy tales, meandering through them all the while. They were objectively terrible, but she smiled all the way through them.

On the seventh night, he asked Clarke why she volunteered to be his wife, if it wasn’t to trick him. A large part of him didn’t want to know, but he was nothing if not curious.

“To die in place of another,” she said plainly, “that’s a noble death.”

Bellamy sensed there was more to it than that, but there was no hint of a lie in her words.

With each passing night, the thought of executing her sunk deeper and deeper into the back of Bellamy’s mind. Soon enough, he had nearly forgotten that killing her had been the plan all along.

It became a popular joke around Polis, that an all-powerful Commander couldn’t bring himself to kill this one woman. But Bellamy only had to kick one wisecrack off the balcony of his throne room for the rest of his subjects to get the message: whether or not he executed Clarke, the rest of them were still vulnerable. He still had control.

It was important to Bellamy that he still had control.

But when he crawled into bed at night on the 2199th night and looked into Clarke’s eyes, nothing he knew was more true: he had no control here.

“What time is the execution, again?” she asked. If there was one person Bellamy allowed to joke about her execution, it was Clarke.

“There’s never going to be an execution,” he said, and kissed her.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello lovelies!
> 
> These tropes really got me out of my comfort zone, which was a fun challenge. I hope you liked it!
> 
> -Mobi <3
> 
> p.s. I’m on tumblr @mobi-on-a-mission


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